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(image) This is it. The last unique words on the MacNN homepage, barring some miracle. Hey gang, I'm Mike Wuerthele, and I've been your host here for the last couple of years, so it's only fitting that I'm the one turning off the lights....

(image) As much as we lampoon some of the sillier rumors in this space, we do like taking a peek into the crystal ball of what might happen and picking out our favorites to bet on. As we all know, some of them come true, some of them never do, some may come true someday -- so they're like prayers, in a way -- and there is some fun in handicapping the likelihood of which camp a given rumor will fall. In recent years, the dead zone between the end of WWDC and the announcement of the new hotness(es) in the fall there comes a second "silly season" where analysts, pundits, and other assorted otherwise-unem...

(image) Apple is abusing its position as gatekeeper to the App Store by blocking the latest version of Spotify's iOS app, according to a letter allegedly sent from the streaming company to Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell. A report claims Spotify general counsel Horacio Gutierrez is "causing grave harm to Spotify and its customers" by rejecting the iPhone app update, with Apple's billing system being at the heart of the complaint....

(image) Editor's Note: there are many examples of our MacNN Podcast that we are proud of, but this one we picked as an example of "the best of MacNN" because it is so representative of what the podcast was about: comraderie, laughs, news, insight. Even though the podcast focused on stories that had already been reported on the site, it gave listeners both our analysis of those events as well as a look at the people behind the reporting. The good news is that the podcast will continue after MacNN's shutdown under a new name, so we hope previous listeners and new ones will join us for more banter, bad j...

(image) For a long time, MacNN has been highlighting great offers from the MacNN Deals store for our readers to enjoy, and this is the last installment. Today's selections are all software tools for you to use on your Mac, including one powerful text editor, a fantastic scanning app, something to jazz up your photographs, and an ideal addition to your toolkit if you need to improve your productivity....

(image) Editor's Note: Over the last week, we have been highlighting some of the more memorable stories from MacNN's archive, re-running them and providing some updates on what happened afterward. While some selections have been important moments in the site's history, items such as the 2013 story of a lawyer suing Apple because it's devices didn't prevent him from viewing pornography are chosen for their sheer absurdity....

(image) In part one of this piece, we took a look at some of the headline features in macOS Sierra, coming later this fall. This time around, we examine some of the other features that Apple has baked into macOS Sierra. As we noted last time, there is a lot to like about what Apple is adding to the macOS mix with this latest update. Features like Apple Pay for the web, Auto Unlock with Apple Watch, Universal Clipboard, iCloud Drive, Optimized Storage, and Tabs are also worth a look, particularly as the latter is something I suggested to Apple a couple of years ago, and it's great to see them implement...

(image) A long-running store that provided Apple-related products and services is preparing to shut down in New York City, after 29 years of operation. Founded in 1987 and predating Apple's own retail empire by more than a decade, Tekserve has confirmed it is preparing to shutter its store and wind down its service center over the next two months, with around 70 people losing their jobs from the West 23rd Street store's closure....

(image) Normally on MacNN, we point our readers at some of the giveaways happening over at MacNN Deals. Since this is the last giveaway post to grace the front page of this site, we thought that it would be best to highlight all the ongoing giveaways at the store rather than just one, giving you a final chance to know about everything that is up for grabs and to enter if you haven't already, including one competition we haven't had time to promote....

(image) Bang and Olufsen has unveiled the first wireless earphones in the company's history, to go alongside its existing wireless headphone collection. The Beoplay H5 take the appearance of a cleanly-designed pair of in-ear earphones, with the two audio-producing sections connected by a braided cable and a compact remote section, minimizing the amount of extra bulk that typically accompanies wireless earphones to house batteries and radio components....

(image) Editor's Note: as we count down the last days of MacNN, we've been picking some favorite stories to re-run. We've seen it all across these 21 years, and we've pointed to some of the biggest stories we've ever covered, but just as memorable are the oddball ones. This is another of those: the phrase "detachable beeper disc digital gym shoe computer wrist watch" won't leave our minds anytime soon, nor Ms. Washington-Gross' demand for $5 billion in recompense from Apple (and not anyone else in the wearable field, it would seem). The case was dismissed about a month after it was filed, but it lives...

(image) Some of you may have a similar feeling when you find out that they have torn down your old childhood school, or when you see a picture of your old flame; there are a lot of happy memories, and everything turned out okay, but what was and could have been are a bit sad nonetheless now that they're gone. I have been really touched and a bit overwhelmed at the outpouring of well-wishes and memories from our readers, Twitter followers, FB buddies, fellow Apple-centric sites, and others around the world, and like you I wish things had turned out differently, but the feedback has made a bad week bett...

(image) Every day until our closure tomorrow, we are showcasing some of the offers available from our MacNN Deals store. For a change, all the items today have been chosen by Malcolm Owen, the person who usually compiles these deals posts, and are all things he wouldn't mind owning for himself or thinks are pretty cool pieces of tech. No theme today, just his personal selections....

(image) On Wednesday, Apple released both developer and public-tester versions the fourth beta for its next current-release update for OS X and iOS, and a developer-only fourth beta for tvOS. Developers are also expecting to gain access to a second beta for the major upgrades to these and watchOS in the near future, as it has been two weeks since the first beta was released at WWDC. The latest updates -- iOS 9.3.3, OS X 10.11.6, and tvOS 9.2.2 -- are focused on bug fixes, along with security and performance enhancements, as usual....

(image) Editor's Note: Today marks the ninth anniversary of the iPhone's initial sale to the public. On June 29, 2007, the smartphone that effectively changed the mobile phone industry, and arguably computing as a whole, overnight was put on sale in Apple Stores, though with this Best Of MacNN post, we're instead looking at an earlier event, namely when it was first unveiled onstage by Apple chief Steve Jobs during Macworld....

(image) Apple's latest version of its desktop OS has picked up a rebrand, bringing it into alignment with its tvOS, watchOS, and iOS lowercase stablemates. The rebrand also suggests that Apple is going to settle into a pattern of continually evolving its desktop OS iteratively -- OS X is now macOS in perpetuity, with the internal codename now taking top billing. While it naturally picks up several new marquee features, the arrival of Siri on the Mac is by far the biggest news in macOS Sierra. Read on for our initial thoughts....

(image) While in no way legal or binding, The Little Las Vegas Chapel has played host to an unusual ceremony where a man named Aaron Chervenak had a commitment ceremony to "marry" his iPhone. While the groom himself did not comment, chapel owner Michael Kelly, who has overseen similar ceremonies involving pets "getting married" or "weed weddings" where people professed their love for marijuana, said the "iPhone marriage" was intended as a statement on society's dependence on the devices....

(image) Apple has come up with a way to control functions of a smartphone, via infrared light. The recently published patent for "Systems and methods for receiving infrared data with a camera designed to detect images based on visible light" (9,380,225) suggests infrared light received by a sensor could be used to transmit data to the device, forcing functions to work in specific ways, or in some applications, temporarily disabling some elements entirely....

(image) For quite a while now, MacNN sometimes finds a deal that is too big or important to go into our other deal lists, and is deserving enough to be highlighted inside its own Big Deals post. Even though the clock is running out for MacNN, we're still going to point out the deals we think you will enjoy like we always have. Like last summer, we've found one of the largest photography bundles deals available, with the aptly named The Big Deal 2016 from Foto Promos....

(image) Apple is helping to fund the music videos of artists and bands, as part of its plan to gain exclusives for its streaming music service. Executives from both Apple and elsewhere in the industry advised to a report the iPhone producer has helped finance musical projects, including Drake's Hotline Bling and MIA's Borders videos, to not only get content for its subscribers not available anywhere else, but also to make Apple Music a more attractive place to be, in a similar vein to MTV in the 1990's....

(image) We've reviewed several things by Moshi over time, and they are among a handful of other companies you can count on to make high-quality stuff that's well thought-out. One of their newest products is their entry into non-earbud headphones, and it's a pair of on-ear cans that offer a stylish look and very good sound (after a bit -- more about that later). There are people who want great sound and a reasonable amount of noise isolation without the weight and bulk of over-ear headsets: will the Avanti fit the bill? Find out in our review....

(image) The "Trade Up with Installments" plan from Apple Stores that allows customers to buy new iPhones with built-in yearly upgrade options for set monthly payments saw some minor changes on Tuesday. The new plans offer customers more flexibility in how they use the money they earn from trading in the older smartphone, but lowers the maximum value of a trade-in from $300 to $250. The changes are only for the Trade-Up option, and don't affect the similar iPhone Upgrade Program....

(image) Editor's Note: crazy lawsuit stories are a special favorite among the staff as we reminisce on the stories that stood out as particularly memorable, and we have plenty of them. For every legit-but-ultimately-unsuccessful patent lawsuit or the exceedingly rare occasion where Apple is found guilty of something, there's a dozen "huh?" lawsuits. We are proud of our in-depth analysis and reporting of the Samsung-Apple battles, or the DOJ-Apple court fight, or our coverage of the California hiring-agreement case, where Apple was very clearly in the wrong. Forgive us, though; its hard to summarize th...

(image) Every day until our closure later this week, we are showcasing some of the offers available from our MacNN Deals store. Today's selections are all accessories for your Apple Watch, including a pair of charging docks, a stylish wooden stand, and the ability to create your own customized watch band to one that shows off your personality....

(image) Evernote is making a number of changes to its three different levels of service, increasing the charges for those subscribed to either of the paid tiers. The announced changes to the Plus and Premium tiers note-taking service also include alterations to the free plan, with users of Evernote Basic now limited to accessing their account from just two devices, instead being able to use it on as many devices as they wanted....

(image) Florida resident Thomas S. Ross on Monday filed a lawsuit with the Florida Southern District Court alleging that Apple infringes upon his unpatented 1992 submission of an "Electronic Reading Device" that does imagine a device not dissimilar to the Newton, and is seeking $10 billion in damages and a 1.5 percent royalty on all of Apple's iOS devices. The court filing notes that the plaintiff "was the first to file a device so designed and aggregated," but admits that the patent application was declared abandoned in 1995 because Ross never paid the required application fees....

(image) Editor's note: As we are winding down site operations, the staff of MacNN is rerunning some personal favorite stories, both those that are important, and those that are favorite memorable moments in the world of technology news. I'm staff writer Malcolm Owen, and while this isn't exactly a story relating to Apple directly, it does show the effects of when another store tries to do the same thing, specifically concerning musical guests....

(image) New rules introduced by the Chinese government are going to increase the monitoring of the country's citizens, by forcing mobile app stores to keep track of their users. Apple and other app store owners are ordered by new rules issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China to keep records of user activity for a period of time, as well as establish the identity of both the users and the app developers, in order to crack down on the viewing and distribution of banned content....

(image) Are you someone who works outside of the office on a regular basis and needs a powerful yet easy-to-carry notebook to do you work in, or simply want to get a free upgrade? This is a reminder that you may want to enter this MacNN Deals giveaway, one that will continue to run after MacNN's closure this week, that will provide one lucky winner with a MacBook valued at $1,300....

(image) Apple is under investigation by a regulator in South Korea, over "some matters" relating to agreements and deals the iPhone producer has in the country. Advised earlier today in a parliamentary hearing, South Korea's Fair Trade Commission Chairman Jeong Jae-chan confirmed there is a probe underway relating to Apple, but the anti-competition regulatory head did not disclose any details about what specifically it is examining....

(image) Google is allegedly working on producing a new smartphone it will produce itself, according to a report, with the first release potentially arriving at the end of this year. Rather than relying on a third-party manufacturer to actually produce the devices, a report claims Google is intending to go into hardware production itself, giving it increased control over the overall experience consumers will get to have with the mobile device, instead of just the software that the existing Nexus device range uses....

(image) A fourth lawsuit against Apple over alleged infringement of patents used by FaceTime has been filed, this time by Straight Path Group. The lawsuit, filed in the Northern California District Court, claims that FaceTime infringes on five patents previously owned by NetSpeak, which made the popular VOIP application WebPhone in the mid-1990s. As with previous suits underway by patent trolls VirnetX, VOIP-Pal, and Uniloc, the suit covers older and more general audio-video patents allegedly used by Apple in its FaceTime and Messages technologies....

(image) Editor's Note: as MacNN closes at the end of this month, we're showcasing some of our favorite pieces from its recent history. I'm Malcolm Owen, and I helped out on a series of reports concerning a collection of "bundle" sites that sold licenses for a number of apps, but failed to pay the developers behind those apps. The first report appeared in November, with an updated reminder of what was going on published in April this year, the content of which is repeated below....

(image) It's billed as being for making sport and movies sound great, but I can tell you now that it didn't help make the UK European Union referendum sound any better at all. You can't expect miracles, though, and the Kitsound Stadium 120 is far from the top end of TV soundbars that you can buy. Yet it did transform my television, and it did make it very hard to go back to watching anything without it....

(image) Editor's note: we're winding down the site with some of our special stories and moments across the last few years. As a long-time staffer, the heyday of the Macworld Expos were a very special time for all of us working at MacNN: it was a rare chance for us all to get together in person, report on the latest and greatest in an intense blitz of publicity, and stay in swanky New York City or San Francisco hotels. Editor Charles Martin attended the final Macworld/iWorld Expo in March of 2014, and filed this report....

(image) Over the weekend, Apple employees once again participated in the Bay Area Pride Festival, including CEO Tim Cook, as they have as an official participant since 2014. Employees received special rainbow-colored Apple Watch bands this year, accompanied by a special playlist of related iTunes content. The event, which continues to focus on the LGTBQ community but has expanded to be a more general celebration of freedom from oppression or discrimination. This is the third year that Apple has officially participated, though employees have marched in the parade for many years prior to the official in...

(image) Every day, we are showcasing some of the offers available from our MacNN Deals store. Today's selections are all flying machines you may know as quadcopters or drones, including the smallest the MacNN Deals store has to offer, a pretty well protected model, one with an onboard camera that can follow you, and a drone declared to be the best in the store's history....

(image) By sheer coincidence, our final episode of The MacNN Podcast comes just before a scheduled break for the Canada Day/Fourth of July holiday. Yes, it is sort of true -- because the site will be shutting down (more on that in a bit, but you can read about it here), this will be the last episode under the MacNN banner. However, because Mike and Charles and others are still having too much fun with this, we'll pick up again on the week of July 11 with a new creation, Cranky Old Guys Generally Disapproving of New Things, or Project Keep Us Off the Streets, or whatever we're going to call it....

(image) We're halfway through our year-long history celebrating Apple's 40th anniversary, and we've reached a milestone for the entire computer industry. These days, that really means a milestone for the world -- and yet, it's one that is barely remembered, hardly celebrated, and when you know what it is, our perspective from all these years later actually makes it hard to really comprehend how monumental it is....

(image) For quite a while now, MacNN sometimes finds a deal that is too big or important to go into our other deal lists, and is deserving enough to be highlighted inside its own Big Deals post. Even though this writing team hasn't got much time left, we're still going to point out the deals we think you will enjoy like we always have. Like last summer, we've found one of the largest photography bundles deals available, with the aptly named The Big Deal 2016 from Foto Promos....

(image) Fujifilm has released a new portable printer that is claimed to provide users with credit card-sized photographic prints within ten seconds, faster than its predecessor. As the name suggests, the Instax Share Smartphone Printer SP-2 is meant to receive a photograph from a smartphone or tablet and turn it into a compact printed image that users can keep, giving users an alternative way to create a copy of their favorite photos alongside the usual sharing of images with friends over social networks....

(image) I'm not even supposed to be here. While, strictly speaking, I started my career in BBC local radio, I soon moved into computer magazines -- and then I left, from boredom. I'm only telling you this because it's you. Also because they were PC computer magazines: I struggled to get excited when this month's grey box was one percent faster or perhaps 10 percent greyer than the last. Yet by sheer number of hours alone, I think I've written more computer journalism on MacNN in the last 19 months than I have anything else....

(image) Everyone likes getting something for nothing, especially when there's no or relatively few catches. Freebie Friday is the post where the MacNN staff find stuff that you can get, and possibly make use of this weekend, without spending a single cent. For the last time before the site closes, the freebies on offer today include coding courses, tuition to make your photographs better, and our usual collection of free iOS apps....

(image) [Update: outage resolved] Since at least 2:17 PM Pacific Time today, the iTunes and App Stores appear to be dysfunctional for at least some users. The problem appears to be most severe in the northeastern US and in England, but there are scattered reports from a number of other countries, though not all users are affected. For those that are, however, upgrades and purchases are not able to go through. This also is having an impact on Apple's streaming services and the ability of users to log into their iTunes accounts....

(image) Editor's Note: as MacNN closes at the end of this month, we're showcasing our favorite pieces from its recent history. I'm William Gallagher, and I wrote this one about OmniPlan back in early 2015, so I should say first that the software detailed in it has been updated many, many times since then. I did like the software when I first reviewed it, and I like it even more now -- but the reason I picked this is that it was a deceptively hard piece to write....

(image) This isn't going to sound like a compliment, but it is: we've practically nothing to say about this backup app. That would be because it does the job, though, and that not only can we quickly start using it, but we can quickly forget about it, too. Mac Backup Guru 6.0 is a way to make a complete copy ("clone") of your whole hard disk, a backup of important documents, and a regular copy of either. It does what it says it will, and where it's noteworthy is in how easily it does all this....

(image) YouTube is stepping up its efforts to allow users to stream live over its service, with an upcoming update to its mobile app. Putting itself in direct competition with Facebook's own live-streaming service and the Twitter-owned Periscope, the Alphabet video site is slowly rolling out a change to its iOS app that will allow a small selection of users to broadcast video live to their subscribers, directly from their smartphone or tablet....

(image) Editor's Note: As we wind down operations, the staff of MacNN is running some of their personal favorite stories, either moments we were especially proud of or -- as with this one -- stories that really stuck out in our minds. I'm MacNN writer William Gallagher, and I've chosen my colleague and pal Malcolm Owen's series about being a Windows user returning to the Mac. It's a fresh perspective on what, to me, is the very familiar Apple environment....

(image) Honda has revealed that it will offer an upgrade for buyers of the brand-new 2017 Honda Accord, which debuts June 27, that supports both Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto for those buyers who include the seven-inch Display Audio touchscreen in their options packages. Honda currently supports CarPlay in the 2016 Accord and Civic, and the 2017 Ridgeline, with the 2017 Civic Hatchback gaining the technology when it arrives this fall. The company did not say how much the 2017 Accord upgrade would cost....